Forensics Expert: Phone Records May Be Dead End In Lueck Disappearance
Jun 25, 2019, 10:44 PM | Updated: 10:47 pm
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – Multiple search warrants have been served as detectives look for clues in the Mackenzie Lueck missing person case, Salt Lake City police said Tuesday. However, the department won’t say if cell phone records are included in those search warrants.
Police will confirm that Lueck’s cell phone is currently powered down and that it was turned off once she met up with an unknown person at Hatch Park in North Salt Lake just before 3 a.m. on June 17.
“Pretty much right after the contact was made at the park—that’s when things went dark,” said Detective Greg Wilking.
Obtaining cell phone records would be a typical starting point for any investigation, says computer forensics analyst Trent Leavitt.
“Knowing what communications came in, either text message or through phone calls in or out,” Leavitt said, adding that the records would also provide the location of Lueck’s phone based off of triangulation with cell phone towers.
Leavitt said police will only get part of the puzzle by accessing the cell phone records.
“A lot of people will rarely use text messages and they’re using things like Instagram or Facebook or Twitter to communicate back and forth with people,” he said.
The details of such internet-based communications, even though they were completed on a cell phone, can’t be obtained from a cell phone provider. They would need to be obtained for the company that manages the online messaging application.
“The problem with that is there’s so many communication apps out there that you’re almost looking at a needle in a haystack,” Leavitt said. “So if you’re wanting to have a secret conversation with a certain someone, you could go find one that’s not very popular.”
If police determine that Lueck was using a messaging application, they could get a separate search warrant asking for the details of her activity on the app. That could possibly uncover the identity of the person waiting for her at Hatch Park.
“Either she or the person that she’s with doesn’t want to be found,” Leavitt said.
